Friday, November 21, 2008

NewFNP, while having perfect blood pressure and pure, blissful euglycemia, is plagued with allergies. All manners of cats, grasses and trees lead to newFNP's desire to scratch her eyes out with pitchforks and occasion a series of sneezes so violent that a lesser woman might wet herself. These unfortunate symptoms seem mild when compared with newFNP's food allergies.

While newFNP's aforementioned environmental allergies began in childhood, her food allergies started as an adult. Apples and tomatoes were the first to develop and were made worse by newFNP's daily consumption of both snacks prior to figuring out that they were the causes of her swollen, vesicled lips. Nectarines are the most recent victim of newFNP's jacked up immune system.

Why is it that newFNP could not be allergic to a fruit that she is not so fond of, such as papaya or naval oranges? Hell, newFNP would even trade in satsumas if she could have apples back. The only thing that made her evolving food allergies tolerable was her super hot allergist at her grad school's health center.

NewFNP, however, is lucky as far as food allergies go. Not-a-once has she experienced that dreadful tingling in the throat, angioedema and pruritis - to say nothing of the hypotension and polyuria - that are hallmarks of an anaphylactoid reaction.

The crappy thing about a food allergy is that one can enjoy something, such as a Pink Lady apple, for her whole life and then all of the sudden become sensitized to it. The next bite triggers the reaction and from then on such an unfortunate soul must find another healthful snack.

So goes her thirty-odd year old patient who has, until now, enjoyed a lifetime of grapes.

Delicious, full of polyphenols, easily transportable and a major component of wine = newFNP's seal of approval. That is, except for when they cause your eyes, lips, tongue, soft palate and throat to swell up like you just walked into a beehive and you come into newFNP's clinic with a touch of respiratory difficulty, not yet distress.

For the first time in over three years, newFNP opened the crash cart and delivered 50mg IM of Benadryl to this gentleman's gluteus maximus.

Truth be told, newFNP wasn't really expecting that he would perk up so quickly. Within minutes, his tongue and palate were back to normal size and his previously swollen shut right eye was open and clear. Lungs were perfect and respirations were not strained.

Benadryl, people, is a wonder drug. NewFNP kept him in the clinic for a few hours and monitored him repeatedly. She wrote him a prescription for an EpiPen, tested him for other food allergies, told him to stay the hell away from grapes, gave him some Benadryl and precautions/ instructions for the road, and told him to come back for his lab results, sooner prn.

Grapes.

What needs to develop is an allergy to McNuggets and Shamrock Shakes, to hot wings and chicharrones, but not to lovely fruit.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

NewFNP is either the luckiest or the unluckiest mamacita to ever roam the streets of her urban metropolis in a sweet Toyota Prius.

NewFNP would be hard-pressed, on any given day, to call herself an optimist. This is especially so when she is frigging swamped with patients and when her MA is doing a dump of a job instead of her usual pretty awesome job.

But then newFNP has a night like tonight and she realizes that she is, in fact, a glass is half full kind of gal indeed. But she isn't some fucking Pollyanna goody-two-shoes softie so put away your hankies.

NewFNP had finished a muy rico Cuban dinner with friends and left the festivities a little early to head home in order to be well-rested for her 8AM dental appointment. In order to get from her friend's house to hers, newFNP has to drive through a not so savory area. But seriously, who gives a fuck?!? She wasn't planning on stopping and she works in a ghetto way crappier than this area.

Well, all of her plans of an uneventful drive home were shot to hell when some a-hole ran a red light, hit her sweet hybrid and sent newFNP literally spinning through the fucking intersection. Although there were many, many other cars in the intersection, she was not hit by a single one during her tilt-a-whirl intersection adventure.

She was hit on the driver's side, but is not at all hurt.

The driver kept going. Asshole. Seriously. 100% certified asshole.

As this occurred in a super-crappy area, one of the witnesses waited with newFNP until the police arrived. Really cool, right? Big shout out to A.T. in the Google t-shirt for her total decentness and humanity.

Well, what is not cool is when you're in a super big accident and you're in a shitty neighborhood waiting for the cops and some dickhead teenage gangsters start throwing fruit at you.

What. The. Fuck? NewFNP kind of wanted to go vigilante on them, but what is she going to do? Hit them over the head with her fancy university coffee mug?

NewFNP made it home safely after having filed a police report with some super cool lady officers. They took the hit and run's bumper - sans license plate - and hubcap for evidence. Does the manufacturer put a VIN on a hubcap? No, right? Oh, that would be some sweet justice.

This is the second time that newFNP has been involved in a major hit & run in a crappy area of town. The first time, her car was in the shop for three months. It was a $14,000 repair. NewFNP was peppered with flying glass yet walked away unscathed, if not a little shaken.

Today, she did a wide-arced 180 in a busy intersection and is not even sore.

NewFNP is lucky. And it's nice to realize that she is, in fact, an optimist after all.

That tune might change, however, when she writes yet another $500 deductible check to the repair shop. Crate and Barrel Petrie chair, you'll just have to wait.

Sunday, November 09, 2008

It is not often that newFNP falls ill, but when she does, said illness tends to knock her on her ass. The convalescence is short, but miserable - especially when it falls on a beautiful sunny Saturday.

This period of debilitating lack of energy brought newFNP to a couple of realizations.

For one, newFNP is fucking over not having cable. Who, in their darkest hours of viral illness, should be further traumatized by having to watch network Saturday TV? Sure, newFNP could have read, but if she is too exhausted to order Thai delivery because it would require her walking downstairs to retrieve her Tom Yum Gai, she is too freaking tired to read. Seriously, it's not like newFNP has People and Us Weekly lying around.

It was somewhere during the 8-hour Lipstick Jungle internet streaming marathon that newFNP realized that cable and a DVR were in order. November 22 cannot get here soon enough. This is not to say that LJ is a bad show as far as S&TC rip-offs go. NewFNP had never seen it before and thinks that Lindsay Price is as cute as the day is long. She was thrilled to see her Crate & Barrel couch in Nico's office. But don't let that clean white upholstery or the Crate & Barrel sales people fool you - the flawless white upholstery does not remain pristine, even in newFNP's childless, petless home.

For two, the excruciatingly embarrassing neti pot is a must have for any illness involving sinus fullness/mucus/overall disgusting head cold repulsiveness. It is a shameful bathroom entity which, like moustache bleach/wax and corn removal tools, should be hidden whenever guests of the romantic nature are visiting. But, man alive, does it ever work.

NewFNP is on the mend, so much so that, after finishing the Sunday NYT, she is planning on visiting the Nordstom half-yearly sale. Clearly, the dawn of a new day.

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

NewFNP expected that Obama would win as she stood in line at the polls early this chilly morning, but she must confess that the win feels so much better than she had imagined. It is exceedingly rare that newFNP tears up when listening to a speech on TV, but tonight was an exception. Two times she got a little misty - once for President-elect Obama's speech, and earlier during McCain's concession speech as well. If the McCain who spoke tonight would have campaigned instead of the meanie who capitulated to his party's rightest wing time and time again, perhaps there would have been an actual Presidential race.

Instead, a landslide. For once, newFNP and Karl Rove's predictions were in accord.

NewFNP feels like it is truly the dawn of a new day. She wants to bask in this good day sunshine feeling and ignore the fact that three states appear to be voting in bigotry in the form of gay marriage bans and a forth has embraced discrimination in banning unmarried "sexual partners" from adopting children. Brad and Angelina - heads up. Do not move to Arkansas.

But newFNP is off to bed, a smile on her face, dishes and wine glasses piled high in the sink - invigorated and hopeful for this new chapter in our history.

Monday, November 03, 2008

If newFNP never has to hear the word 'nucular' again, it will be too damned soon.

NewFNP is so freakin excited for tomorrow and for a big Obama landslide (fingers crossed). She will be at the polls bright and early and will be liberally abusing her clinic's personal internet use policy between every patient, monitoring the early returns.

Oh, how newFNP loves election day. She thinks that her friend's four-year old grandson expressed the feeling best while going through his swearing phase, declaring, "I am a fucking American!" Watching the returns is so exciting! It's like Oscar night for nerds.

NewFNP had planned to cook turkey chili for the occasion, a newFNP specialty and an American favorite - pleasing in red and blue states alike. However, she decided on seared sea scallops with herbed red potatoes (ironic, eh?) and garlic-infused baby broccoli - a more sophisticated meal perhaps better suited to the changing of the guard.

This blog is for new NPs or NP students who want some real 411 on the life of a new practitioner. A new practitioner in a busy, understaffed, urban community health clinic in a major metropolitan area. Oh, and newFNP swears while writing and, sometimes, while working although she tries to keep those swears to herself. Consider yourself warned.